Putin to attend G20 summit in Bali despite West's pressure

Despite Western leaders calling for Moscow s expulsion, the Russian leader will travel to Indonesia for the meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the G20 summit in Indonesia this November, the Kremlin announced on Monday. While several Western leaders have demanded Russia's expulsion from the event, Indonesian President Joko Widodo invited Putin to the meeting in Bali.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov announced Putin's attendance, but told reporters that it is still not clear what capacity the Russian leader will participate in. I hope that the Pandemic will allow this important forum to be held in person, but I can't guess, Ushakov said.

The G 20 summit brings together leaders of the world's 20 largest economies, with representatives from the European Union and several international organizations, including the United Nations and the World Health Organization, given guest invitations every year.

In March, US President Joe Biden called for Widodo to exclude Putin from this year's meeting, while Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that it can't be business as usual to have Vladimir Putin sitting around the table pretending everything is OK, because it's not OK and it's his fault. Widodo did not cave in to the pressure campaign and invited Putin as planned. The Indonesian leader has also called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to travel to Bali in November.

Widodo attended the G 7 summit in Germany this weekend, and he will travel to Kiev and Moscow this week to meet Zelensky and Putin after leaving on Sunday. Widodo said in a Sunday post that he aims to encourage the two leaders to open dialogue and stop the war. His efforts, however, could be in vain. Since the beginning of February, Zelensky has swung between calling for talks and vowing to seize the Donbass republics and Crimea by force. With the G 7 leaders promising to keep Ukraine armed and afloat for as long as necessary, Zelensky told a French diplomat over the weekend that he will negotiate when he will be in a position to do so. While Russia has not ruled out a return to the negotiating table, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stated that Zelensky's statements that contradict each other make it impossible to fully understand Kiev's intentions and whether it is ready to take a sober approach and acknowledge the real state of affairs.